Used Test: 1976 Kawasaki KH400 Nice Bikes Come Last

The KH took a very different approach to riding than the famous H1 and H2 from Kawasaki. And that made it special.

Riding around on a KH400 on a sunny afternoon was a very pleasant experience. The Kawasaki triple started easily and ran reliably. It was reasonably quick, very smooth, and handled well. It seemed like a capable, practical and very nice bike.

And that, in a way, was precisely its problem. Kawasaki’s two-stroke triples of the 1970s weren’t known for being pleasant or reasonable, let alone nice. They were fast, loud, ill-handling sons of bitches that were too much for many riders – and that was a big part of their appeal. But the KH, which was launched in 1976, was too soft and civilised to live up to that reputation.

To be fair, this wasn’t really Kawasaki’s fault. The triples’ mad, bad image had been built on the 500cc H1 that had been unleashed in 1969, and the even more outrageous 750cc H2 that had followed it in 1972. Those models had been hugely popular in the USA, in particular, where their blend of power and light weight had given them unbeatable acceleration.

In those early days the Kawas’ sometimes dangerously poor handling and braking were not regarded as serious flaws, especially in the States where straight-line performance, especially from stop-lights, was all-important. Nor was the two stroke’s horrendous thirst a significant drawback in the US, where petrol was so cheap.

But it wasn’t long before the smoky stroker’s noise and thirst came to the attention of the powerful Environmental Protection Agency in the States. Emission laws were tightened, and 1975 was the final year for the mighty H2 750, which still managed to earn a Cycle World magazine test headline of ‘Evil, Wicked, Mean and Nasty’ in that year, despite having been detuned.